


when the song ends in a minor key

by whataboutateakettle



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Gen, Post-Finale, Tequila
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6724849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whataboutateakettle/pseuds/whataboutateakettle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby wakes up the next morning. // three alternate timelines // <i>[post-ep 2x24: <b>spoilers</b>]</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	when the song ends in a minor key

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I got these three ideas and couldn't decide which one to write. Let me know which one you like best? ~~If any.~~
> 
> Be warned, there is no resolution in any of these. It was just three possible ways we could pick this story back up!

**Happy // 4:37 am**

The garage seems still and silent, not that she’s surprised. In fact, she’s relieved. That’s why she waited, drove hours around the city, refused to come back until she could be sure it would be clear. She’s careful as she steps into the building, keeps her boots light on the concrete. She doesn’t need Walter waking up now.

All she wants to do it grab her things, her bag, her helmet, so that she can go home and not come back for the weekend. So she can have time to think, to figure this out. She’d rushed off with nothing but the truck key and her phone still in her pockets and by the time she’d closed the garage door behind her there was no going back.

From the back of the garage she can see light coming from above the desks, and she frowns, freezes in step for a moment.

Maybe Walter just forgot to turn them off.

She continues. There’s still confetti all over the ground, sharp metallic reminders; she’d managed to shake most of it out of her hands, but here they haunt her from beneath her feet. She just needs to get to her desk.

She’s nearly there when she freezes again. There’s a body lying on the couch. Toby.

Toby, who proposed to her hours ago.

Toby, who nearly died today.

Toby, who she nearly lost today. And then she did anyway.

There’s a near empty bottle of tequila on the table in front of him, next to Sly’s mug. He’s on his back, one arm above his head as his head is turn towards the crook of his elbow, away from her. One foot is hanging off the edge of the couch.

She swallows, feels her eyes sting. She’s not sure if they're stale tears or fresh ones.

She’s only a few feet away from her desk. She could grab her things and be out of here in ten seconds and he would never know that she even came back.

She thinks of his face when she told him. She thinks of his body strapped to a chair. She thinks of his voice when he tells her he loves her.

She can’t leave. She knows this. Knows it by the way her feet are glued to the floor, the way her heart is stuck in her throat, by the wave of relief she feels that he’s asleep, that she doesn’t have to see his face fall all over again.

She's going to stay, the realization settles in her like anchor. She moves towards he couch carefully, picks up the throw resting on the back and gently pulls it over him. Toby doesn’t flinch.

She tries to remember how full the bottle was when she last saw it. Wonders how long he will be out. 

In the kitchen she grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and heads back to the couch, sets it down next to the tequila. She sits in the armchair next to him. She waits.

It takes an hour and twelve minutes for him to wake up. She’s not sure what does it really, because she’s barely moved, hasn’t made a sound, just watched him sleep, turning words and reasons over in her head. He shifts first, groans a little the way he always does when he’s hungover. She watches him pull at the throw and then freeze, she can almost hear the realization hit.  

He’s halfway to sitting when she picks up the water bottle and holds it out in front of him.

“Drink this,” she says.

He stares at it for a second then looks over at her, looks tired, confused, and dejected and the combination makes her feel sicker than the worst hangover she’s ever had.

He takes the bottle.

She watches him drink the water, knows the words that are going to come out of him mouth next, wishes for a moment that she didn’t believe in linear time as much as she did.

“Were you ever going to tell me? That you -” he gestures with his free hand, lets his words trail off with face that looks like he can’t bear to say the words.

She bites at her lip, nods.

Toby knows things about her no one else does. He knows the about the scar on her right shin, he knows she needs an extra pillow when she’s on her period, he knows about her favorite foster family.

He knows how she likes her toast, how much time she needs in the shower, how to pull her towards him when they're on opposite sides of the bed. 

He should know this too.

“I was going to,” she says finally, “I didn’t want to hurt you.” The words are true but they feel cheap. He scoffs loudly, takes another gulp of water.  

She takes a breath, continues, “And I didn’t want to screw this up.”

She thinks of how the thought would bubble into the back of her mind at times, in the quiet moments before bed when he was focused on whatever book he was reading, in the car when she’d look over at him at a red light, when he’d offer her the last egg roll from their take out. She would always shake it away. Later, she’d tell herself, _just a little bit longer_.

He looks at her again now, his eyes gazing at her half warm and half wary.

“ _I love you_ ,” he reminds her, and the words sound so different from the last time he said them, but she lets them wash over her. She knows it’s time.

She finds his gaze, holds on tight; and starts from the beginning.

* * *

**Sylvester // 9:15 am**

He and Ralph have a plan for the day. It was brainstormed last night and developed fully over breakfast at Kovelsky’s.

First, breakfast at Kovelsky’s. Then, they spend the morning at the garage to work on some projects: Sylvester is finding a new way to rewrite knot theory; Ralph wants to see how far he can go with his sound wave data transfer model, now that’s it’s back safely in his own hands. After lunch they are heading out into the city, their bus is due at 1:45, to take them to the Science Institute were there are a series of seminars Ralph wants to see.

All in all, it will be a good Saturday following a terrible, then happy, then uncomfortable Friday.

“Do you think the seminar on light particles is going to be worthwhile?” Ralph asks from behind him as Sylvester opens the door to the garage.

“Uh, from memory it’s at the same time as the Q and A on particle-wave duality, so we’re going to have to-” he stops mid-sentence, three steps inside.

Toby is asleep on the couch. Well, asleep would be putting it gently. He’s most definitely passed out, probably something to do with the empty bottle of tequila of on the coffee table and – _is that his super fun guy mug?!_

 _“Oh boy,_ ” Sylvester voices finally and looks down to see Ralph looking back at him, brown eyes wide and worried. 

“Is Toby okay?”

Sylvester swallows, and starts nodding before he can even think of something to say. “He will be. He just... had a rough night.”

Where is Walter? Walter was supposed to stay with him, supposed to make sure he got home okay, didn’t do anything self-destructive. Instead, Toby’s passed out on their office furniture, the place smells like a cheap Tiki bar and Walter is nowhere to be seen.

“Ralph, why don’t you work at your mom’s desk for a bit, I’ll just clean some of this up,” he nudges Ralph towards the middle desk.

He picks up the tequila bottle and his mug, looks inside to see an inch of tequila still sitting inside, reminds himself to wash it twice before he uses it again. He takes both to the kitchen, pours the remnants of alcohol down the sink, drops the empty bottle into the trash and turns on the coffee maker.

Ralph’s sitting at Paige’s desk, tablet open, headphones on his ears, but Sylvester can tell by his movements that he’s not really focused on his work. He keeps gazing over to look at Toby. Toby, who still hasn’t moved at all.

He’ll be okay, he just had a rough night, Sylvester tells himself, waits for the coffee to finish.

He makes sure it’s strong and hot. Usually Toby takes creamer, but something tells him he’ll want it black today. He lays the mug, blue and speckled and decidedly not his tequila-contaminated SFG mug, down on the coffee table and moves around it.

“Toby,” he rubs at his shoulder gently. He smells a little worse up close. “Toby!”

Toby shifts a little but doesn’t open his eyes. Sylvester sighs, and picks the coffee back up and holds it closer to Toby’s face.

“Toby!”

“ _Wha?_ ” Toby groans, opens his eyes then squeezes them shut just as quickly. He tries to tuck his head into a cushion. “Why’s it so bright?”

“Because it’s daytime,” Sylvester replies. “I made you some coffee.”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Toby replies instead and Sylvester instinctively takes a step away from him. “No, hand me the -” he trails off voice rough and he just waves his hands towards the mug. Sylvester gives it to him, watches him slowly rise into half a sitting position and take a sip of the hot liquid like it’s the most arduous task he’s ever had to do.

“Did you drink all of that tequila?” Ralph asks suddenly, voice loud and sharp and Toby winces, head sinking into his shoulders.

“No,” he answers slowly. “There was only a third left to begin with. Just my luck.”

“I think that was the good kind,” he says, makes sure his voice low enough to not cause even more pain, and sits down on the couch now that there’s enough space.

“Are you okay?”

Toby turns to look at him like it’s the most stupid question he’s ever asked. “Let's see. Yesterday morning I woke up tied to a chair, and today,” he pauses takes another sip of his coffee. Sylvester’s almost concerned that he’s drinking the scalding drink so quickly, it’s at least a few degree too hot to swallow comfortably. “I get to wake up to the fact that not only is the love of my life not going to marry me, she’s already married. To _someone else_. So you know, it's still early but I'm pretty confident this is the low point of my year.”

“I’m sorry,” Sylvester frowns, at a loss for words. What could he possibly say anyway?.  

“Do you want to watch some cartoons?” Ralph asks, his voice softer than before, and they both look up to see him standing in front of them, holding his tablet in his hands. “When I feel sick, my mom lets me stay in bed and watch something I like. I still have some Wile E. Coyote from before.”

Sylvester smiles a little, is touched even though he knows it’s not for him.  He turns to look at Toby. He looks touched too, tired, drained, a little haunted, but touched. He tightens his lips into the briefest of smiles.

Ralph smiles back, and moves in to seat himself in between them and places the tablet on the table so they can all see it

“This is my favorite episode,” Ralph adds as the credits play.

Sylvester looks over Ralph’s brown mop and sees Toby halfheartedly watching the screen as he drinks his coffee. He’s not sure what happens after this, not sure where Happy is, not sure where Walter is either. He’s not even sure if they’ll keep the rest of their schedule.

Wile E. Coyote falls down a cliff and pinballs off several trees branches before landing directly into a lit cannon and being shot back out. Toby laughs, it’s barely there, his voice still rough, but it almost sounds like he knows the feeling.

* * *

**Toby // 10:42 am**

He dreams about a wedding cake that falls of the table, about flowers set on fire, about red wine spilling on white. He dreams of flashing moments, colored with panic and pain. Nothing makes sense.

In his dreams the ground disappears below him, Happy gets pulled into the darkness by a monster he can’t see. In his dreams, he’s stabbed in chest and when he looks down he’s holding the knife. In his dreams Happy runs out the door.  

He wakes up to a sharp pain in his head. A pain that suddenly spreads all over when he realizes the last one wasn’t a dream.

He tries to open his eyes against the light and regrets it immediately.  He sits up slowly, eyes squeezed, his feet touch the floor and his hands feel out the edge of the couch. He blinks his eyes open again, feeling ever so slightly more stable, and comes face to face with the empty bottle of tequila that got him here.

The garage is empty, quiet, still and for a moment he is infinitely grateful.

Paige is in Tahoe. Walter is probably also in Tahoe by now. _Huh_.

Sylvester’s with Ralph. Cabe is... wherever Cabe goes.

Happy is –

Happy is married.

The rock in his stomach suddenly turns liquid and churning. He’s on his feet and racing towards the kitchen sink, throws up. Except there's nothing to throw up. He’d barely eaten yesterday so it’s all water, both the regular and Mexican variety.

He leans his hands on the counter, drops his heads and stares at the floor for a moment, waiting to see whether he'll feel sick again. Under his foot there’s a single silver piece of confetti, just shiny enough to reflect his own misery back at him.

He needs to talk to her. He needs to see her, and touch her and understand what the hell happened because he sure doesn’t know.

He thinks of every moment he’d told her things no one else knew, every time he’d bared his past and present with her, every promise he had made.

His stomach churns again and he pulls himself over the sink once more, but there’s nothing. He’s got nothing left in him.

He probably needs to eat, probably needs to drink something that can’t sterilize his insides, probably needs to get away from here.

He knows that if he closes his eyes there’d be a map on the back of his lids. He could get to a table in ten minutes or less. If he wanted to.

He wants to find her.

He _wants_ to be engaged to her. He wants to wraps his arms around her body under his covers he wants to press his face into the crook of her neck; he wants to let his finger trace around the edge of the ring on hers.

The ring, he’d tossed it haphazardly onto his desk last night, and when he struggles his way across the room he stares at it for a few moments. It looks weird, has it always looked this weird? He’s not sure.

The back of his throat burns.

He picks up the ring and drops it in the bottom drawer of his desk, kicks it closed with his foot. The noise is louder than he expects it to be, pierces through his brain and he winces.

He needs to get out of here, grabs his satchel from his chair and heads out.

She’s not the only one that can run.


End file.
